Delicious Discarded Items

Short Version:
Monkeys! Naughty monkeys!

Long Version:
From the Pashupatinath Temple, we sidled around the bottom edge of the Deer Park and into a cluster of small temples.

Linga abounded.

And there were monkeys.

The first one we saw was stealing and eating the orange and yellow flowers that devotees had left as offerings. Naughty monkey!

The second and third appeared together; a baby clinging to its mother. They too were snacking on religious offerings. More naughty monkeys!

And then they were everywhere; in the trees, not in the trees... everywhere! Big ones, little ones, raw-bottomed ones. Squabbling, grooming each other, staring into space, eating. Lots of eating. Flowers, bits of tree, dirt, unidentifiable objects, shoes. Nom nom nom nom nom. Delicious shoes.

We descended a series of switchback corners and were spat out onto a broad, tree-lined avenue. With more monkeys. One tried to steal an old man's flower necklace. Failed. Lucky not to be hit with a stick.

A bridge took us back across the river towards a bright orange monkey-god statue, at and near which groups of women were worshipping and bathing. Monkeys, too, were frolicking in the waters, and operating in competition with the human trash scavengers for prime - and especially edible - discarded items. Nom nom nom nom nom.